Recently, I was reading Rewind by Lisa Graff which is a middle-grade novel about a 6th grade girl time traveling from 2018 to 1993. I am sure the "being a time traveling 6th grader in 1993" is part of what made me want to read the book because although I have no time traveled, I nearly was a 6th grader in 1993 (I started 6th grade in 1994). Now, I was homeschooled, we didn't watch a lot of tv, mostly listened to music from the 60s on the radio, and didn't watch many movies that weren't animated so there is a lot of the wider culture of the 80s and 90s that we just didn't participate in. However, enough of the time period, the lack of cell phones, and all that was familiar enough. It was fun to be taken back to that time.
Reading that book also got me thinking about many other books I've read over the years with time travel as a plot device. Then the more I thought about it, the more I came up with! Not many of these could be classified as sci-fy-y, most are more "my life just jumped forwards (or backwards) and I don't know how to process this is what life will be (or was)". Really, who wouldn't be thrown for a loop if they all of a sudden got a peak at their life 5 years in the future. There would probably be many things that wouldn't make sense to life right now!
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, links for which are included within this post, at no additional cost to you. Thanks for helping support this blog! Of course, utilize the library or shop used or from an independent bookstore if you prefer!
1) The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Starting with an older title and one with the most obvious time travel in the title. (Amazon tells me I purchased this in paperback 14.5 years ago...I am 90% sure I read it on our Seattle trip a few months later.) This is one of those books that was EVERYWHERE and EVERYONE was reading. Henry is an adventurous librarian who time-travels completely randomly and without choice. Over time he has enough encounters with Clare that they fall in love and attempt to have something of a real relationship despite his not always being present or present at different ages really.
2) Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald
This is a book that I have thought about MANY times and knew almost immediately that it should have been on my favorite reads of 2019 list (instead of what? I don't know now.). This takes place almost entirely at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan and almost entirely during the phenomenon known as "Manhattanhenge" where the sunset lines up with the NYC street grid (I have never witnessed this but wouldn't mind doing so some day!). Starts in 1937 (historical fiction not centered around a war!) when a railroad worker sees a mysterious woman who seems just slightly out of place. Her clothes are nice but dated and she doesn't quite fit with Depression era New York. She disappears before he can talk to her and becomes fascinated by seeing her again. Having been to Grand Central isn't a must but is a nice bonus.
3) What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
I had thought many times that if I was in a book club, this would be one of the first books I would suggest to discuss...and now I'm on my 3rd year of being in something of a book club (is it a book club if we all read the same books approximately the same months but rarely discuss them?) and I still have no suggested this book to read. Alice Love is 29, in love with her husband and pregnant with her first child. The next thing she knows, it's 39, on the floor of a gym, in the middle of a divorce, and has THREE kids. She doesn't know how she got there or how her life became this and what the heck to do about it. So many good topics to discuss with a book club in this one! (I'd imagine...still have yet to do so.)
4) All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
This is probably the most sci-fi book on this list AND has the distinction of being the only one here that Matt has read too! (There was a stretch a few years ago when I actually got him to read books with some regularity! Which meant I was reading more sci-fi-ish ones in an effort to find some he might like). It's 2016 and Tom is living in a world where technology has solved all our problems. No war, no poverty, etc. But he's not happy because he's lost the girl of his dream so, since he has a time machine, he decides to try to fix this. And instead of fixing it, he ends up in our 2016 where there is war and poverty and a host of other problems BUT...he has a wonderful career, family, and the woman who might be the love of his life. So go back to the "perfect" world or stay in this one where his personal life is "perfect"?
5) Rewind by Lisa Graff
The book that kicked off this list and I talked about above. Easy to read since middle grade and transports to one of the more recent times (the 1990s).
6) Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
This one is one we actually read for book club and maybe the hardest one to read on this list. A woman disappears on her 26th birthday from California in 1976 and comes to in Maryland pre Civil War where she isn't a woman just living her life but a slave who has no control over her own life. She jumps back and forth between the two times, eventually figuring how what pulls her back to slavery each time. It is hard to read the slavery portions, getting an intimate look at how hard life was for people forced into that life. BUT...also important to read it. I'm glad book club finally got me to read this one.
7) In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
A more recent read (it came out in 2021...which isn't as recent as I thought). Dannie is very much a planner and everything in her life is going according to plan. Then, one night she wakes up, exactly 5 years in the future and spends one hour there. In a different apartment with a different ring on her finger and a different person in her life. She cannot figure out how this happened before going back to her highly planned life. She spends the next 5 years seeing how her life got to the point of that flash forward and if there is anything she can do to change it.
8) In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren
A Christmastime set Groundhog Day-esque book about a woman who is frustrated with her life but is determined to enjoy one last holiday at her family's cabin in snowy Utah where they always spend Christmas with two other families (I cannot comprehend people who never want to be home on Christmas.) She just wants whatever will make her happy...then there is the screeching of tires, everything goes black...and now she's on a plane to Utah instead of a car where she's going to start the same trip all over again. And then over and over and over again. She needs to break free of this time loop and wants to find her true love.
9) The Good Part by Sophie Cousens
Another very recent read, this one just came out in November 2023. Lucy is 26 and tired of everything. Tired of her job, tired of bad dates, tired of her bad living situation, and just tired. She makes a wish in a mysterious shop that she could just skip to the good part of her life. And the next thing she knows, she wakes up next to a mysterious man, a ring on her finger, in a fancy house, with two kids. If this is the "good part" she doesn't know anything about how she got here or who these other people are. Has she really skipped a whole chunk of her life. One of my favorite details of this one is that one of her kids figures out right away that this isn't his "real" mom and is convinced she's an alien. I do appreciate a good kid sidekick here! Also, demonstrates that maybe the hard parts of life are worth living through.
10) Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
The most literary fiction of any book on this list, as you'd expect if you've read any other Emily St. John Mandel. This is a strange book to try to explain, there is so many different things happening and yet, she pulls them all together by the end in ways I wasn't expecting. This books skips around from Vancouver Island in 1912 to the moon 500 years later and a few other places in between.
11) This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
Another pretty recent book (released less than a year ago) and one that flashes back to a time where I was close to the same age as the protagonist! Alice is on the eve of turning 40 (I read this last year when *I* was nearly turning 40) and her life is pretty good. Happy enough with her romantic status, apartment, job, etc. But her father is ill and something feels like it's missing. The next morning she wakes up in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday (I didn't turn 16 until 1999 but this is close!). She's shocked by being a teenager again, her high school crush, but also seeing her father fully healthy and vibrant. Past events take on new meaning and she has to decide if there is anything she would change.
12) When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
Another middle-grade book that I was really taken with when I read it many years ago. Sixth-grader Miranda (I like the recurring theme of 6th graders being involved in time-travel) has a fall-out with her best friend and starts to receive mysterious notes. The notes tell her she must write a letter and she can't tell anyone about her mission. She'd just ignore these notes, except whoever is leaving them is strangely good at predicting the future. Which is a problem because these notes predict that someone is going to die. When I read this, I was proud of myself for piecing together most of the mystery before it was fully revealed...until I remembered it was written for kids half my age...
13) The Life Intended by Kristin Harmel
Another more "alternate world" than time travel but that's close enough for this list. Kate's husband died suddenly 10 years ago and she never expected to find love again. But now she's planning to marry a perfectly nice man when she starts seeing her dead husband in her dreams. In really vivid dreams. Is she really ready to move on? Is he trying to tell her something? These dreams lead her places and a life she didn't expect.
14) Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
New Years Eve 1982 and Oona has her life ahead of her. At midnight she'll turn 19 and the year ahead seems to be a big one. As the countdown to midnight begins, Oona faints and wakes up 32 years in the future in her 51 year old body. She's greeted by a stranger in a beautiful house she's told is hers. Oona soon learns that each year she'll travel to another age at random. She's young on the inside but her body and the times are constantly changing. She never knows who and where she's going to be next! What to hold onto when this is your life?
Putting this list together made me realize that I generally like time-travel as a plot device or at least I did in all these instances! Maybe it's just fascinating to think about what I would be surprised by if my life suddenly jumped forwards or backwards. Backwards might be easier, since I've lived it already, but forwards would be more interesting, seeing the future. Always gives me a lot to think about, either way!
Let me know if you have read or plan to read any of these and what you think of them!
No comments:
Post a Comment